Guest David in MA Posted March 16, 2006 Report Share Posted March 16, 2006 After reading few posts on pre-amp and power-amp, I'm sort of leaning towards a vintage power amp such as crown dc300. Do these amplifiers require recapping?Also, what is your take on buying refurbished amplifiers? Is this a good idea to save few bucks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ar_pro Posted March 16, 2006 Report Share Posted March 16, 2006 Before you jump, look very hard at the Crown PS-400, a more modern, more powerful descendant of the DC300: http://www.crownaudio.com/gen_htm/legacy/legacamp.htmThere's one on ebay right now: http://cgi.ebay.com/Crown-PS-400-Professio...1QQcmdZViewItem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ar_pro Posted March 17, 2006 Report Share Posted March 17, 2006 >There's one on ebay right now:>http://cgi.ebay.com/Crown-PS-400-Professio...1QQcmdZViewItemThe ebay PS-400 sold for $345, which is an amazingly good value - someone got quite a deal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest David in MA Posted March 17, 2006 Report Share Posted March 17, 2006 >The ebay PS-400 sold for $345, which is an amazingly good>value - someone got quite a deal!I was watching that auction but I forget to review it after dinner...oh well.As for the original question, if I purchase a preamp or power amp that is more than 20 years old, should I be concerned about replacing caps in them?Thanks always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dynaco_dan Posted March 17, 2006 Report Share Posted March 17, 2006 >>The ebay PS-400 sold for $345, which is an amazingly>good>>value - someone got quite a deal!>>I was watching that auction but I forget to review it after>dinner...oh well.>>As for the original question, if I purchase a preamp or power>amp that is more than 20 years old, should I be concerned>about replacing caps in them?>>Thanks always.Hi David;You can anticipate the electrolytic caps leaking, only due to age, possibly.Have you ever assembled a Heathkit, Dynakit or equal?Have you soldered or de-soldered resistors, diodes, caps or wires, in an electrical appliance?Do you have a Weller WTCP soldering station or similar?Are you comfortable in taking an amp or pre-amp cover off and replacing the elect caps, for example?Do you feel that you would have to find someone else to do these parts replacements?You cannot buy an older piece of equipment, and expect that anything is needed, or to do all or some of this immediately.You will be more likely, than not, need to do something on this idea in the future, not necessarily the near future either.If you are talking of tube equipment, then tube replacements would be part of the normal maintenance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rrcrain Posted March 17, 2006 Report Share Posted March 17, 2006 As an riginal owner of two solid state vintage amps approaching their 26th and 28th birthdays, the answer your looking for is an absolute maybe. So far, none of their electrolytics are showing any visible signs of leakage the amsp are still absolutely silent at idle. Maybe new caps would improve their sound, but I'm suspecting it wouldn't be by much. Realistically, the most I would expect to benefit from recaping them is for them to live a few more years.In the end, it depends on the quality of the original parts, the quality or value of the amp itself, circuit design and how well the amp has been taken care of over the years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ron Posted March 26, 2006 Report Share Posted March 26, 2006 David,For what it is worth: I posted a question here about amp/pre-amp setups for a pair of AR3s that I inherited. After getting a lot of very good advice from everyone on this site, I decided to buy a Crown DC 300, which arrived yesterday. I connected it today and have been thoroughly impressed. At the low levels at which I listen to music, the sound strikes me as super complete (highs and lows). Very nice, a huge improvement over the no-amp setup that I'd been using. I'm sure the PS 400s are a further improvement...I got caught up in the DC 300 lore and decided to see what it might amount to. Regards,Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest soundboy2001 Posted April 17, 2006 Report Share Posted April 17, 2006 >After reading few posts on pre-amp and power-amp, I'm sort of>leaning towards a vintage power amp such as crown dc300. Do>these amplifiers require recapping?>>Also, what is your take on buying refurbished amplifiers? Is>this a good idea to save few bucks?I own a pair of AR-9 for over 10 years now and have tested many amps with them. peavey cs-800 2x 400w pa-amp, yamaha pa-amp 2x 500w (don't remember model), yamaha m-60 hifi-amp 2x 300w , dynacord paa-560 pa-amp 2x 250w , dynacord st-2100 pa-amp 2x 100w, crown studio amp (i think it was a dc-300 II, with 2 big caps outside the cabinet), yamaha 2070 surround amp 2x 120w, bryston 2b 2x 80w, 2 models (older one from ebay & a borrowed one maybe 20 year old) of bryston 4b 2x 350w. not to mention various cheaper hifi amps (akai, denon, sony, ...) with lower power.yamaha's sounds like shit (never heard a good sounding audio device from this company). other amps are poor to average sounding. pa-stuff was unusable because of the fan's and bad sounding.the dynacord (double mono, build 1977, no fan) was ok (bass was a bit too big, "vintage-sound") but i would highly recommend the bryston 4b (i bought on ebay one some days ago for 500,- euro). the 2b sounds good too but has not enough watts to drive the big ar's. with the 4b the bass is slightly lower but very deep and controlled. i get a far better stereo image and a very open sound with LOT'S OF DYNAMIC. my advice is forget this vintage amps except maybe mcintosh or mark levinson, ... and get a bryston. i'm sure you won't regret!recapping is not a bad idea but to my opinion is that on old amps the biggest problems are the input pots, output relays, switches. lot's of sound deterioration thru this parts. the brystons don't have any of these ;-).maybe i should add that i was working as a sound engineer for some years now and listen to some very good & expensive (30k and above) studio monitoring system (bryston is "the name" there too) in mixing-rooms. the ar-9 (with bryston 4b) got the deepest bass i've ever heard. love them since i first heard them!!!sadly my ar-9's need's some refoaming on the 12"-woofers :-( .greetings from germany! -soundboy2001 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ar_pro Posted April 18, 2006 Report Share Posted April 18, 2006 soundboy2001 -Look carefully at your 8" lower midrange drivers, too...if they're original, they will probably need to be re-foamed, as well.It's tough to go wrong with a big Crown or McIntosh amplifier when driving the AR-9. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest denmarkdrivers Posted April 21, 2006 Report Share Posted April 21, 2006 I tried a bryston st I think it was a 3b st series, it was a newer one, Tested it on audition from my audio shop, I dident like it, I actually thought my hk 730 reciever sounded better by leaps and bounds, i took it back. Could be due to the fact the pre amps i tried with it were not quite and the same level, BK pro 10 pre amp was used with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.